This is my first post, aside from being in the, “I’m In!”, video.
5-hours in and my team and I are having all sorts of fun. Just look at this picture.
(Next post will contain something constructive. You can listen to my team 18+ randomness here)
My team and I are going at it again. We succeeded in producing a tech demo last time and making everything from scratch. This time we’re quite a bit more prepared. I wrote some tools and the base code is ready to go. I think we’ll actually finish a game this time around.
On a side note, we learned a lot from the first time around. It goes as follows, A, get sleep. B, get sleep. C, get sleep. Oh, I almost forgot D. Don’t attempt to sustain energy on one meal a day and energy drinks. It just doesn’t work. The third day was horrible last time. I had large black bags under my eyes as I pushed forward to add mediocre sounds to our tech demo before uploading it.
In the end though, everybody enjoyed it, even if we didn’t finish; cause it was intensely fun. This time though…it’s war! …and I’m proud to say, we’re in!
Language: Monkey (monkeycoder.co.nz)
Art Programs: Graphics Gale
My Team
Nicholas Grant (Me) – Leader, Lead Programmer
Michael Grant – Lead Graphics, Story, Game Design, Music, and Sound
Eric Rodriguez – Programmer and Magical Math Person
Elena – Graphics, Story, Game Design, and Sound
For the third, technically fourth, time, my team is going to do the Ludum Dare jam. We made a tech demo the first time, we pretty much finished the game the second time but had everything explode 8 hours before the end of the jam because of a bug in the library I was using (which was fixed a bit over a week later -_-). Now we’re hoping to pull off what we did in Ludum Dare 23 but, this time, not have everything explode at the end. Especially because the language I’m using added a real debugger since the last Ludum Dare.
So with that, I say, “I’m in!”
Language: Monkey
Graphics: Graphics Gale, and possibly Photoshop
Text Editors: Jungle IDE, and possibly Notepad++
Music / Audio: MakeMusic Finale, Audacity, Bfxr and/or Sfxr
My Team
Nicholas Grant (Me) – Leader, Lead Programmer, Backup for anything uncovered
Michael Grant (Bro) – Lead Character Spriter, Lead Sound and Music, Co-Lead Writer
Elena Cordero – Lead Tileset Spriter, Lead Organization and Management, Co-Lead Writer
Eric Rodriguez – Programmer-in-training, Lead “I forgot the directions and got lost for the fourth time in a six month span,” Lead of Magical Math, Hot Dog Tester, and Half-Hispanic; Half-White Guy
Tags: im in, ld24, Ludum Dare 24
This is my team’s 4th time entering. Our first time, the game was not completed. We probably pulled every mistake you could do at a game jam that time. We still turned it in though. Then the second time we nearly completed the game when a game destroying bug popped in and I was unable to repair it in time. The third time we were focusing on pulling off what we did the second time, but we didn’t like the idea we had come up with, so the game ended up worse than the first game. We turned it in though.
With this, our fourth time doing the LD, we finally pulled everything together the week before. That is, I’ve tested and made sure things are working and not broken. This time I think we’ll actually pull off a game. Which would be awesome, ’cause my teams been in a bit of rut.
Programming Language: Monkey
Editor: JungleIDE
Graphics: Graphics Gale, Photoshop
Sound Effects: bfxr, or PD sounds
Music: MakeMusic Finale, FL Studio, or just grab some PD music
My brother sort-of did a post mortem, but I don’t think it fully covered this Ludum Dare and our game Double DeConstruction.
Going into this Ludum Dare, this was my team’s fourth time attempting the Ludum Dare, after failing to create a full game 3 other times. Our spirits were high, although understandably weakened. We came up with, 9-days before the Ludum Dare, a pre-Ludum Dare mini game idea where you’d play some sort of construction vehicle, like a bulldozer, and would run over things as the screen moved, much like the game Robot Unicorn Attack. I decided to not do it to try and save energy for the Ludum Dare. A day or two before the Ludum Dare came, I thought that people might choose End of the World. So we started pondering at the mini game idea, saying that the reason for this vehicle running over things would be because the world is ending and the person operating it doesn’t care what they do anymore.
Come the day of the Ludum Dare, “You are the Villian” is announced. Funny enough, this still fit into the game scenario in a sense. The thing is, I didn’t want to make a Robot Unicorn Attack type game, so I opted in for a top-down shooter. We discussed how to set it up, and while one member was reluctant to do this idea, because they didn’t like the genre, we still did it.
The Ludum Dare jam for us starts at 6PM on Friday and ends at 6PM Monday.
On Friday, we managed to get test objects up and running along with setting up the game states.
On Saturday, we had the player and enemy shooting wrenches out. The battlegroud image was completed and the official sprites were prepared.
On Sunday, we put in the title, character selection, and good/bad ending game states. The AI was also made during this day.
On Monday, in the very early morning I put in the sounds and music, as well as the amount of points you get for the kill to pop up (aka polish).
What went right?
What went wrong?
In conclusion, we are very happy. I wouldn’t say just happy, it felt more like a sigh of relief that we finally were able to complete the Ludum Dare. I want to do it again, but I honestly don’t know if my team wants to do it again. I think they want to stop doing the Ludum Dare on a good note. Who knows, maybe I might compete in the compo by myself and not the jam with my team next time around. Back on topic, all-in-all, it was a great experience and really taught me some things, namely how good it feels to complete a project. So, until next time…
Tags: jam, ld25, post morem, post-mortem, postmortem
Well, I’m going for the LD again. This will be my sixth time in, 2nd time alone.
Here’s my LD history…
LD 22: Didn’t complete a game but turned it in anyways.
LD 23: Bug killed the game 8-hours before the end of the jam. I just couldn’t get it out.
LD 24: Did as much as LD 22.
LD 25: Finally finished a game first time. Both in the LD and ever.
LD 26: Finished second game ever and by myself in the 2-day time squeeze.
I hope to make something even better than LD25 when I had my team and 3-days this next time around. I wanna try and make something more enjoyable than I made in the past 2 Ludum Dares. While they weren’t bad, they weren’t great either, so I want to top them. Here’s me hoping. *cross fingers*
Programming Languages: Monkey
Editor: JungleIDE, Notepad++
Graphics: Graphics Gale, Photoshop
Sound Effects and Music: bfxr, Soundation, FL Studio, or public domain music/sounds
Library/Framework: XAddon (my lib/framework), FontMachine, Monkey-JSON
So here comes another Ludum Dare for my team and I; and you know what? We’re in.
My History with Ludum Dare
LD 22: Didn’t complete a game but turned it in anyways.
LD 23: Hard to track down bug killed the game 8-hours before the end of the jam.
LD 24: Did as much as LD 22.
LD 25: Finally finished a game first time. Both in the LD and ever.
LD 26: Finished second game ever and by myself in the 2-day time squeeze.
LD 27: Was really sick the whole compo. Didn’t finish (because I slept too much), but made the most complex game mechanics I’ve ever made.
On this seventh edition of the Ludum Dare, I look forward to not being sick and having a chance to really give some of the new stuff, I made since the last Ludum Dare, a good test run. My goal this time around, opposed to my output of the last Ludum Dare, is the limit the mechanics and their complexity. See what can produced under a constrained system. So here’s to hoping I make something neat! *cross fingers*
What I’m using!
Programming Language(s): Monkey
Editor(s): JungleIDE, Notepad++
Graphic: Graphics Gale, Photoshop
Sound Effects and Music: bfxr, Soundation, FL Studio, or public domain music/sounds
Library/Framework: XAddon (my lib/framework), FontMachine, Monkey-JSON
Tags: bfxr, im in, LD28, ld48, Ludum Dare 28, monkey, woo hoo
So after deciding to stop the last Ludum Dare a few hours in. The reason being that the theme was a joke taken from a TV show, although most people didn’t know that, I couldn’t concentrate because I was so annoyed that it was the theme picked. We’re going to attempt this one. This time around as long as the theme isn’t another TV show quote and someone trying to be funny, my team and I will be in.
My History with Ludum Dare
LD 22: Didn’t complete a game but turned it in anyways.
LD 23: Hard to track down bug killed the game 8-hours before the end of the jam.
LD 24: Did as much as LD 22.
LD 25: Finally finished a game first time. Both in the LD and ever.
LD 26: Finished second game ever and by myself in the 2-day time squeeze.
LD 27: Was really sick the whole compo. Didn’t finish (because I slept too much), but made the most complex game mechanics I’ve ever made.
LD 28: Theme was a TV show quote that killed the fun for us. Came up with a bad idea and started. After a few hours realized it was bad and then decided it’d be better to take a break from this LD and just go for the next one.
Our goal for this Ludum Dare is to simply create another game. For a bit we kept having goals of more mechnics, constrained mechanics, etc. I want to go for simply creating another game this time around.
What we’re using!
Programming Language(s): Monkey X
Editor(s): JungleIDE, Notepad++, Sublime Text
Graphic: Graphics Gale, Photoshop
Sound Effects and Music: bfxr, Soundation, FL Studio, or public domain music/sounds
Library/Framework: XAddon (my lib/framework), FontMachine, Monkey-JSON, MiniC (N.Edition)
For the last two Ludum Dares, the themes have been really uninspiring and I was feeling overworked and tired before the compos. Not completing them I realized that change was needed. So we decided to take a vacation and then come back and completely change what we were using to create games in for the last 3 years. As much as I’m worried about Unity’s domination over the market in the future, I gave in to its overpowered awesomeness. I don’t regret it.
My History with Ludum Dare
LD 22: Didn’t complete a game but turned it in anyways.
LD 23: Hard to track down bug killed the game 8-hours before the end of the jam.
LD 24: Did as much as LD 22.
LD 25: Finally finished a game first time. Both in the LD and ever.
LD 26: Finished second game ever and by myself in the 2-day time squeeze.
LD 27: Was really sick the whole compo. Didn’t finish (because I slept too much), but made the most complex game mechanics I’ve ever made.
LD 28/29: Cancelled both for reasons of being uninspired (believe me, 4 hours into LD29 we went, “crap, this game is terrible”)…
The goal set forth for this Ludum Dare is to create something “simple” since I’ve only been using Unity for a handful of weeks…or in general to just create something which hasn’t happened for 2 LDs. It will happen, there’s high energy this time around (and pizza!).
What we’re using!
Engine: Unity (2D)
Programming Language(s): C# / JS(Unity)
Editor(s): Visual Studio 2010, Notepad++, Sublime Text
Graphic: Graphics Gale, Photoshop
Sound Effects and Music: bfxr, Soundation, FL Studio, or public domain music/sounds
Library/Framework: Unity 2D, Toolkit2D
Tags: 2d unity, bfxr, FL Studio, graphicsgale, im in, jam, LD30, photoshop, Sublime Text, unity2d, visual studio 2010
Did Ludum Dare 21-28, but haven't done one since. Got busy with life and the like. I decided that it's been long enough and I should probably get off my rump and do it again.
I used to use different libraries and languages to do my games in and for this one I'm going to continue in that tradition and use C# + MonoGame this time around. I've been writing a bunch of framework code prior to the competition so that I'm not stuck setting up how to draw a segment of an image, which is handled in an unfriendly manner in MonoGame; and other unfriendly code bits that do nothing but slow down work.
With all of that said, good luck to everyone and especially to those who are new to the Ludum Dare. It's hard, but if you finish, you'll feel a lot pride. 👍